Organizations like Future Ready Schools are helping rural schools, which tend to face an array of digital equity concerns, embrace makerspaces to bolster their STEM offerings, according to “EdTech: Focus on K-12.”
In many cases, these efforts have also served to benefit the surrounding community, such as when students at Montana’s Corvallis High School created air sensors to gather data and address local air pollution from forest fires and wood-burning stoves — an effort supported by a grant from Montana State University.
Cited as crucial to success are ensuring a well-defined process that outlines student and teacher roles are in place, as well as gaining community buy-in and keeping in mind that maker spaces can be as high- or low-tech as needed as long as they enable creative and collaborative thought in a safe environment.
